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CAMILLE PISSARRO
Baigneuses luttant (variante)
.
Lithograph printed in black and gray on cream wove paper, circa 1894.
180x260 mm; 7
1
/
4
x10
1
/
4
inches, full margins. One of approximately only
6 or 7 lifetime impressions. Signed, titled and inscribed “Ep. d’état no.
1” in pencil, lower margin. A superb impression of this exceedingly
scarce lithograph.
This impression cited by Delteil as ex-collection M. Tailliardat, Paris,
the artist’s lithographic printer. There is another impression in the
National Gallery of Art,Washington, D.C., Rosenwald
Collection.Wehave found only one other impression at auction in the past 30 years.
Pissarro created half as many lithographs as his body of etched work.
The constraints of working with a lithographic printer and the inherent
technical complexities of the medium, compared to etching, were likely
a deterrent. Nevertheless, his lithographs from the 1890s, particularly
those of the bathers as well as the views of Rouen, emit a spontaneity
of draughtsmanship along with a strong play of light and dark that is
parallel to his paintings and drawings.
Shapiro notes,“Details of the bathers’ faces and bodies are subordinated
to dynamic patterns of sharp light and shadow, which lend a feeling of
energetic movement to the print. With superb control of a difficult
lithographic technique, diluted tusche, Pissarro has modeled the figures
with translucent gray washes, and with vigorous strokes has depicted
foliage and grass against the dark riverbank. The bather seated at the
right is in a pose that Pissarro particularly favored, and this motif is seen
frequently in other prints and paintings.”
Pissarro used this composition, in reverse, in another lithograph,
Baigneuses
luttant
, 1894, variations of the subject of nude female bathers frolicking
in the water in an etching,
Les Quatre Baigneuses
, circa 1895, and another
lithograph,
Baigneuses à l'Ombre des Berges Boisées
, 1895 (Delteil 159, 118
and 142 respectively), as well as paintings and drawings (see Pissarro/
Snollaerts 1101-1107). He was also doubtlessly aware of and might have
been referencing Renoir’s iconic treatment of this subject,
Les Grandes
Baigneuses
, oil on canvas, 1884-1887, now in the Philadelphia Museum of
Art. Delteil 160.
[15,000/20,000]
Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
The Large Bathers
, oil
on canvas, 1884-87. Courtesy Philadelphia
Museum of Art,The Mr. and Mrs. Carroll S.
Tyson, Jr., Collection, Accession number
1963-116-13.